THIS WEEK IN PEACOCK BASEBALL… Upper Iowa is on the road for six games this week as their 13-game road trip continues. The Peacocks will face the Beavers of Bemidji State University on Wednesday in a pair of NSIC games and then battle the high-powered Mavericks of Minnesota State University, Mankato on Saturday and Sunday in a pair of double headers with the first three counting toward both teams' conference mark. UIU and BSU split a non-conference double header last season, while the Peacocks ended their 2018 season by defeating MSU in three of four games in Fayette.
OFFENSIVE LEADERS... Zackary Cain leads the team in hitting with a .426 average, which ranks 3rd in the NSIC and 22nd in NCAA DII. The senior has 40 hits with 9 doubles and 2 homers for a slugging percentage of .585.
Tony Salato (.386),
Emmett Kulick (.367) and A.J. Friedrich (.333) are all hitting above .300 and pushing the offense through 23 games in 2019. UIU is slugging .408 with 60 extra base hits and posts an on-base percentage of .374 thanks to 216 hits, 94 walks and 22 hit batters.
STANDING ON THE HILL... Duncan Snider (1-3) has thrown well for UIU with 32.2 innings and a 3.31 ERA with 46 strikeouts. Opponents are hitting just .217 against the junior righty, but Upper Iowa has only scored 18 runs in Snider's six starts. In his last three starts, all losses despite allowing only 9 runs in 16.2 innings, the Peacocks have scored just 1 run.
Blake Thiesse has stepped into a starting role nicely and has a 1-0 record and a 4.78 ERA in 26.1 innings for UIU. The young righty has held opponents to a .231 batting average.
GOING DEEPER INTO THE NUMBERS... The Peacocks have struggled against lefties this season hitting .233 against, while the team has feasted on right handers with a .314 average. While UIU has been great leading off innings with a .400 success rate reaching base to open a frame, the squad has not been good with the bases loaded reaching on only 7 of their 41 opportunities in 2019. UIU is averaging a pair of unearned runs per game due to 47 errors and their .937 fielding percentage; 16 of the errors have come at the hot corner where seven different Peacocks have logged time.
SCOUTING THE BEAVERS… Bemidji State enters the double header with a 3-24 overall record and a 2-13 mark against NSIC opponents. The Beavers are hitting .217 as a team this season with 41 extra base hits including 3 triples and 6 homers. As a pitching staff, BSU has posted an ERA of 9.37 allowing 249 runs, 203 earned, in 195 innings. Bemidji State went 1-4 during its week of action against Winona State and Sioux Falls, including a walk-off win against USF. The Beavers scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning after trailing 4-1, highlighted by a two-run walk-off home run by sophomore Wyatt White. Three of BSU's five games were decided by one run or fewer. On the week, BSU hit .235 from the plate, fielded .927, and totaled 10 extra-base hits.
SCOUTING THE MAVERICKS… Minnesota State, which was previously unranked in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll, comes in at No. 24 with 55 voting points after sweeping U-Mary in a three-game series in Bismarck, N.D., by the scores of 6-0, 11-2 and 12-4. The Mavericks moved up one spot from No. 23 to No. 22 in the Perfect Game poll after going 4-1 last week with the sweep over U-Mary and the mid-week series split with Minnesota Duluth. The Bulldogs won game one 10-6 before the Mavericks won convincingly 17-4 in six innings in game two as the game was cut short due to weather. On Tuesday, MSU swept a pair of NSIC games against Northern State University, 7-1 and 14-1, to improve to 24-8 overall and 15-5 in the conference. The Mavericks have hit 14 home runs in the last seven games including six off the bat of MSU's all-time home run leader Jordan Hart.
